20 Feb 2017We are recruiting a post-doc specialising in ancient DNA to contribute to a new Marsden Fund project Using ancient dung to reconstruct the transformation of prehistoric island ecosystems by invasive rats.

01 Sep 2014New Zealand officially has a new species of bird; unfortunately birdwatchers are unlikely to have much luck if they go looking for it, as it has already been extinct for several hundred years.

07 Jan 2014Landcare Research and the Centre for Biodiversity and Biosecurity at Auckland University provided funding to support a workshop entitled ‘Integrating past and present ecologies in island ecosystems'.

25 Sep 2013Conservation palaeoecology is increasingly being recognised as a tool that can help to inform both restoration and conservation of island reserves by providing prehuman vegetation baselines.

28 Feb 2013The study, published in the online open-access journal PLOS ONE (http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0057315) found evidence that moa were parasitised by a range of nematodes, trematodes, and apicomplexans (a group of unicellular microorganisms).

02 Oct 2012Fossilised bird dung from a cave in the northwest corner of New Zealand's South Island has provided new insights into the lives of two of the country’s most threatened species, a flightless endemic parrot and a plant root parasite.

28 Oct 2010New research shows early human colonisation of East Polynesia was much faster and more recent than previously proposed, providing a robust new timing and sequence for the colonisation of the region.